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There was a time when some of the best English footballers and cricketers spent their ‘off-season’ playing the other national sport.

The extraordinary Denis Compton was one of England’s great batters over two decades from the late 1930s to the late 50s but was good enough as a footballer to win the league and FA Cup as a winger with Arsenal.

More recently, county cricketers such as Jim Cumbes, Chris Balderstone, Phil Neale and Arnie Sidebottom all played professional football at a time, in the 70s and 80s, when it was still possible to play both sports close to the highest level.

Gary Lineker once missed a game for Spurs because of an injury sustained in a cricket match he was not supposed to be playing in, and Gary and Phil Neville are still considered the ones that got away by Lancashire because of their cricketing prowess.

Now there is a new name to add to the list and one who is making his mark in a second sport at an age when most top players have long hung up their boots and bats.

Nigel Martyn was a goalkeeper good enough to go to two World Cups with England, made 666 professional appearances, mostly at the top domestic level with Crystal Palace, Leeds and Everton, and was the first £1million goalkeeper in English football.

But what is less widely known is that Martyn has long been an accomplished wicketkeeper-batter, both as a youngster when he played age-group cricket for Cornwall, and, since he retired from football, at a high level of Yorkshire club cricket.

Now, approaching his 60th birthday, Martyn is close to becoming an ‘international’ again after his selection for the Lions, England’s second-string, at 60s level and is set to make his debut, perhaps appropriately, against old footballing rivals Scotland next Friday.

Nigel Martyn still lives in Yorkshire, where he excelled for Leeds (Neal Simpson/EMPICS via Getty Images)

“I got an email out of the blue asking me to go for a trial,” Martyn tells The Athletic. “I’ve been playing for Cornwall over 50s and because I turn 60 this year, the county recommended me. I didn’t know anything about it.”

The trial at Loughborough University and an intra-squad day in Derbyshire last week went so well that Martyn, 24 years since he went to Japan and Korea for the 2002 World Cup and reached the quarter-finals under Sven-Goran Eriksson, was back in the international picture when England cricket seniors named their squad for the summer.

“It’s a little bit later in life, but it’s still a big thrill,” says Martyn from his home in Yorkshire, where he lives following his days at Elland Road.

“I love my sport and take it seriously, but I do have a laugh along the way. Seniors cricket is getting bigger and bigger, and the standards are high. All these guys I play with and against are incredibly fit and you have to remind yourself that many of them are 60-plus.

“You’re not going to put your body through the pressure of playing at this level without having that commitment. Yes, I take it seriously as a former footballer but all these guys do too and I take my hat off to every single one of them. It’s great to be a part of.”

1st XI v 1st XI
1st XI 36/3 (10), 285 reqd off 40 ov
9.3: Giddings to Scott, OUT
Tom Scott c Nigel Martyn b Toby Giddings 0 (2)https://t.co/SITg9fGuey pic.twitter.com/7SLPrRy72n

— Knaresborough CC (@KnaresboroughCC) June 18, 2022

Martyn loved his cricket growing up in St Austell and played both sports at school. “I was always a wicketkeeper,” he says. “I wasn’t allowed to play in goal at school even though I wanted to because I was deemed to be more useful out on the pitch but I did keep wicket and diving around was something I enjoyed doing from a young age.

“There are transferable skills, hand-eye coordination being one of them. You’re seeing a ball out of nowhere and you have to put your hands in the right place to stop them. If I’m not stood up to the stumps, I’m still able to dive around and am maybe able to get to those balls that are a bit wider or have come off the edge or the thigh pad because of football.

“It does help being a goalkeeper but the technical side of wicketkeeping is something you have to learn as you’re going on. There are some good basic tools to work with being a goalkeeper that’s for sure, but I’m still learning to be a ’keeper even now.”

It has been a cricketing journey that was put on hold when Martyn’s football career took off — it was then deemed too risky for him to play cricket — but began again four years after he retired in 2006.

“I finished football when I had a stress fracture in my ankle and I didn’t think I could play sport again, but after a while I got pretty bored and felt I needed to get back doing something,” he says.

“Then I got the all-clear to start playing cricket and I’ve enjoyed the last 15 years of doing it again. I’ve been at Knaresborough for the last six years and helped get them to the Yorkshire Premier division, so that’s as high as you can go at that level.

“Then I had a friend message me in the winter asking if I would help him at Scarcroft to try to help them up through the leagues in the same way, so I’ve got a fresh challenge at club level this year as well as the seniors now with England.”

So, was Martyn lost to cricket, like the Nevilles and Lineker, by the greater lure of football?

“I don’t know if I was ever good enough to play cricket professionally when I was younger,” he says. “I had the athletic ability to dive around and stop the ball but technically at that time I would have needed a lot of work to make it my career. I did play Cornwall schools cricket, but I couldn’t get in the Cornwall schools football team, which is ironic.

“The captain of my Cornwall schools team is now skipper of the Over 50s and he’s the guy who asked me to start playing for them again and that has led to the Lions call-up.

“I still live in Yorkshire and a home game in Cornwall is an 800-mile round trip for me. I play cricket up here on Saturday, drive to Cornwall on a Monday, play the game on Wednesday and get back up in time for Saturday’s game. So I’m lucky that my wife is supportive of this, just as she was throughout my football career.”

The old competitive juices that took him so far in football are still there. “I’m definitely as competitive as I used to be,” says Martyn. “Team sport is many cogs trying to make the machine work, so it’s about doing your job well while encouraging team-mates.

“I get a lot of enjoyment watching other people do well and celebrating it with them. That’s part of the team environment that I have again.”

And cricket has enabled Martyn to retain his fitness. “My daughter is a physio at Harlequins (the Premiership rugby union team) and keeps me on the straight and narrow,” he says.

“When the cricket season finishes, I say, ‘Right, that’s it, I’m not going to the gym anymore’ but she’s immediately on at me and says, ‘You can’t yo-yo, your weight can’t go up and down. At your age, you have to keep doing it!’ So she keeps me going.”

Nigel Martyn playing for Crystal Palace in 1991 (Mark Leech/Offside via Getty Images)

Martyn will be taking a big step towards becoming a ‘dual international’ when he takes to the field at Seaton Carew near Hartlepool to take on Scotland with the Lions but the ultimate goal is to play in another World Cup or perhaps ‘the grey Ashes’ against Australia.

“There’s a World Cup being played in Canada in August, and my birthday falls during the tournament, so I’m not eligible to play a full senior game until I turn 60,” he says. “I’d only have been eligible for the later games, so I wasn’t really considered. But I have to say England have picked two very good wicketkeepers for the World Cup, so I don’t know if I’d have been picked even if my birthday was earlier.

“It would be lovely to get to another World Cup but at this age you can’t look too far ahead!” says Martyn. “The feeling inside of me is to stay fit, strong and carry on enjoying it.

“If there’s a World Cup further along the line, then who knows. But every guy in that squad still works extremely hard to make sure they’re good enough to be there. These guys are bloody good at what they do.”

It would be quite an accomplishment after a football career that saw Martyn play in the 1990 FA Cup final for Palace and win 23 caps for his country, despite being around at a time when David Seaman made the England goalkeeping place his own.

“I do look back with pride,” says Martyn. “My career is something that’s nice to look back on and it’s lovely to be able to go back to your old clubs and be held in high esteem by supporters. That connection is important. When I go back anywhere, it’s always only positive and that’s a nice feeling.”

As would playing cricket for England.

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Game No. 594’s difficulty: 3 out of 5

Connections: Sports Edition hints for May 10, 2026

Scroll below for one answer in each of the four categories.

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Yellow: RUNS

Green: RACES

Blue: RIGGINS

Purple: RUINS

Connections: Sports Edition answers for May 10, 2026

Scroll below for the full answers to each of the four categories.

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Yellow

Baseball stats: ERRORS, HITS, RUNS, WALKS

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Moves fast: BOLTS, RACES, SCOOTS, SPRINTS

Blue

Hall of Fame running backs: JAMES, RIGGINS, SANDERS, SAYERS

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NHL teams, minus the first letter: ANGERS, RUINS, SLANDERS, TARS

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ST. PAUL, Minn. — On a gorgeous spring day, West 7th Street in front of Grand Casino Arena was hopping Saturday afternoon with a street party full of enthusiastic Minnesota Wild fans anxiously awaiting a home second-round game for the first time in 12 years.

One fan vowed to a reporter walking in, “The series starts tonight.”

The reporter may have joked, “Or ends.”

It’s never over ‘til it’s over, but the Wild weren’t going to beat the Presidents’ Trophy-winning Colorado Avalanche four games in a row if they dug themselves a 3-0 series hole Saturday night.

Well, now we indeed have a series.

Looking much more like themselves and playing with a Game 7 mentality, the Wild came out of the gates flying in Game 3, outhitting the Avalanche 18-8 in the first period and ultimately outscoring them 5-1 in the game to cut the Avalanche’s series lead to 2-1 heading into Game 4 on Monday.

Kirill Kaprizov scored a goal and had two assists for his third three-point game of the postseason, top defense pair Quinn Hughes and Brock Faber combined for two goals and three assists, Ryan Hartman scored a power-play goal that chased Scott Wedgewood in the second period and Matt Boldy added an empty-netter.

Jesper Wallstedt, back in net after allowing eight goals in Game 1 and getting a mental reset in Game 2, made 34 saves.

The Wild, who outhit Colorado 39-25 led by a combined 15 by Marcus and Nick Foligno, have won six of their past eight Game 3s when trailing a series 2-0, and their lone series win when trailing 2-0 came in the 2014 Western Conference quarterfinals against Colorado in seven games.

The Avs were handed their first loss in seven playoff games this year.

Kaprizov leads all NHL playoff scorers with 14 points, which is tied with Zach Parise for second-most in Wild history in a single postseason. Hughes and Faber each have four goals this postseason, tied for most in Wild history in a single postseason for defensemen.

Four-on-four goes disastrously for Colorado

The Wild felt they made the proper adjustments in Game 2 to turn their five-on-five game into more of an even game with Colorado.

But after a strong, physical start Saturday in which they had a flurry of chances on Wedgewood, you could sense that the door would swing open for the Wild when referee Kelly Sutherland took Hartman and Parker Kelly to their respective boxes for a four-on-four.

It took just 17 seconds for Kaprizov to give Minnesota a 1-0 lead, a good sign since the Wild are 4-0 this postseason when scoring first. Michael McCarron came out for the defensive-zone draw, won it and skated right to the bench for a Matt Boldy change. By that time, Faber was already flying up the ice. He crossed the blue line, handed off to Kaprizov, and the superstar took it right up the gut for his fourth goal of the playoffs.

Devon Toews then turned the four-on-four into a four-on-three by hooking Boldy. Just 1:33 after the Kaprizov goal, Hughes toe-dragged to the middle of the ice, created a shooting lane for himself and wristed a shot inside the far post for his fourth goal and a 2-0 lead. — Russo

Wild make penalty kill adjustments

Entering the game with a 59.1 percent kill in the playoffs, the Wild were riding the worst penalty kill by a team that advanced past the first round since the league began charting kills in 1978.

The big issues? The Avs’ double neutral-zone drop, protecting the middle of the ice and getting saves, with the Wild’s two goalies riding a save percent of 62.5 percent.

The Wild’s kill went 2-for-3 the game — Nathan MacKinnon poked home a rebound after Daemon Hunt
shoved Gabriel Landeskog into Wallstedt, taking him out of the play on the one Avs power-play goal — but most importantly, they went 2-for-2 in the first period, with Wallstedt making four saves. The kills preserved a 0-0 tie and 2-0 lead.

Then, in the second, when the Wild did give up the MacKinnon power-play goal (the Wild have allowed at least one power-play goal in all nine playoff games), it took Faber just 20 seconds to respond for a 4-1 lead.

It was clear the Wild pressured up ice a little more, had good gaps after the double drop and didn’t allow the first puck carrier to push them back. In-zone, the Wild killers left the goal-line plays to Wallstedt and protected the middle of the ice.

Meanwhile, Colorado’s penalty kill had its first blemishes of the series. The Wild were 2-for-26 in their past seven games entering the game, but they picked up the four-on-three goal, then Hartman’s power-play goal when he was allowed to camp out in front of the net and redirect Mats Zuccarello’s shot past Wedgewood. It came after Boldy stick-handled in a phone booth and then a sensational pass to Zuccarello from Kaprizov. — Russo and Baugh

Wallstedt stands tall

After the surprising goalie switch for Game 2, Wallstedt got the nod for Saturday’s Game 3. And the Wild rookie goaltender looked a lot like he did during an impressive first-round series victory over the Dallas Stars: calm, confident and clutch, with some timely saves before Minnesota blew the game open.

Wallstedt, who allowed a career-high eight goals in Game 1, said he learned from that experience and understood why the Wild gave him a breather and played Filip Gustavsson in Game 2. Wallstedt was sharp from the get-go on Saturday, including buoying the Wild in killing two first-period Avalanche power plays.

And, with the game still 0-0 midway through the first, Wallstedt made a huge save, getting his glove on a partial breakaway by Kelly, with the puck then hitting the post and harmlessly going wide. If the Avalanche had scored there, especially after such a furious initial push by Minnesota, who knows where the game would have gone.

Coach John Hynes entered the game confident Wallstedt would rebound.

“He played six unbelievable games (in the first round),” Hynes said., “That’s why he can come back — he played six unbelievable games. He won a series. That (9-6) game was a one-off. To me, it’s not so much, ‘Well, how’s does he bounce back off a tough game?’ Let’s take it this way: six great ones to one that wasn’t on him. So there’s a confidence built up in there, you know?

“I think that’s where it’s glass half-full, glass half-empty. We can focus on the loss, or we can focus on the six wins.” — Smith

Bednar makes first in-game goalie change of series

Avalanche coach Jared Bednar has been insistent that he’s comfortable playing both of his Jennings-winning goalies in these playoffs. He hadn’t needed to until Saturday night, when he pulled Wedgewood following Minnesota’s third goal, drawing “Weeeeedge-woooooood” chants from the crowd.

Mackenzie Blackwood entering the game served multiple purposes. Bednar both put in the goalie he felt gave him the best chance to win that night, and he also got Blackwood some action for the first time since April 14. If Blackwood starts Game 4, he won’t be going in cold like Gustavsson did in Game 2. Gustavsson hadn’t played since April 13 before allowing five goals earlier in that one.

Along with the goalie change, Bednar shook up his lines. Landeskog moved onto the top line with MacKinnon and Martin Nečas. The line rewarded Bednar with an extended offensive zone shift but didn’t manage to finish.

Avs defenseman Josh Manson (upper-body injury) remained out for Game 3, but he went through morning skate and Bednar said he felt confident the defenseman would play at some point in Minnesota, so barring a setback, he’s likely to be back for Game 4. Another indication of that being the expectation was that Colorado decided not to bring extra defenseman Jack Ahcan — who took warmups as a potential option ahead of Game 2 — on the trip, allowing him to stay with the AHL Colorado Eagles, who are in the playoffs. Blankenburg only played 7:50 in the game. — Baugh

Eriksson Ek out, Wild lineup changes

The Wild didn’t get Joel Eriksson Ek back for Saturday’s game, though the team’s top two-way center hasn’t been ruled out for Monday’s Game 4.

“I would classify him as day-to-day,” Hynes said.

Eriksson Ek participated in Friday’s practice, his first time on the ice since suffering a lower-body injury sliding awkwardly into the boards in Game 6 against the Stars. The Wild kept their forward lines the same, with Danila Yurov in Eriksson Ek’s spot on the second line.

Hynes did tweak his defense pairings, though. Hunt moved up to the second pair with captain Jared Spurgeon, with Jake Middleton dropping to the third pair with Zach Bogosian. Heading into Saturday’s game, of the 12 non-empty-net goals the Avalanche had scored, Middleton was on the ice for nine of them, Spurgeon for eight.

“I think it’s just a little look for both pairs,” Hynes said before the game. “Middleton and (Bogosian), they have some good chemistry together. I think (Hunt) has played pretty well. Let’s see what he and (Spurgeon) look like and we’ll go from there.”

Bogosian returned to the lineup after missing Game 2 with a lingering lower-body injury. The three days between games did help Bogosian heal.

“It’s been a good week for me,” Bogosian said. “So hopefully keep building off that. This time of year, if you’re not banged up, you’re probably playing the wrong way. This is what we do. This is what we play for.” — Smith